The Internet could become conscious by mid-2030s

I've never built a human brain, but I have built a minimal computer, right out of NAND gates and muxes. Bigger, faster, more powerful computers are just more of the same, with 60 years of practice worth of tricks to get more speed. You can string as many together as you want, but I'm pretty sure it'll take a very fundamental change in the way things work to make them anything like a brain. You could probably do it in software, if you had the power, but that's a bit difference. Software doesn't "emerge".

There's probably already well enough processing power available in the entire internet to run a simulation of a human brain capable of thinking, were everyone to stop using it for business and leisure and porn, but we don't really have a good enough understanding about how the brain works.

reply to post by mdiinican


I agree. I see articles that imply that the future of technology may be in organic-like material. It processes information faster than traditional computer components. My wonder, is if at one point, we end up simply creating a 'human'... from scratch... and we call it a computer.

I think that would be alright, but I wouldn't know what to feed my computer... and it may poop on my desk or something...

It's a girl! And we're naming her... "The Internet"!

reply to post by mdiinican


Check out the link i posted In its image video on youtube..and heres the patented technology on how it works in brief,well not brief,but im sure its more complicated than a single page www.imagination-engines.com...

reply to post by Amaterasu

First, I don't believe consciousness has been shown to be a function of some magical number of connections (neurons). I do believe there is far more to it.

Exactly, Internet needs human beings to become conscious or aware the same way we need this other being (we have not came across yet except methodology), for our awareness. For Internet to get a grasp of human beings is as difficult as human beings getting grast of 'this other being'. Hope you understand my thoughts.

reply to post by Ownification


No to become conscious we need to live in a host ie your mother and let our genetic makeup and biology do the rest..and even then if that messes up some children are born brain dead and are not conscious.Applying conscious to God is silly,its a survival tool.Itss the ability to recognise self..which other primates have aswell,although probably to a slightly lesser degree.

Originally posted by Solomons
reply to post by Ownification

 

No to become conscious we need to live in a host ie your mother and let our genetic makeup and biology do the rest..and even then if that messes up some children are born brain dead and are not conscious.Applying conscious to God is silly,its a survival tool.Itss the ability to recognise self..which other primates have aswell,although probably to a slightly lesser degree.

Try to stay with me on this one, try wraping your head around this.

Do you think if Internet does become conciouse it would belive in a creator? Is it rational for it to believe in a creator and when is it rational? We have come to an age where we have managed to almost create a concious being, the interesting thing about it is that we are part of this being. If we are extracted away, this being wouldn't be conciouse. Reminds you of something, just think about it. No body here is asking you to believe in GOD, it is just a thought but than again everything is just a thought, no? YES!

Let's imagine (Which is a possibility) that it is conscious or that it will be:
Then, what about all the Viruses and Worms and Trojan Horses?
What about all the hackers and highjackers?
It can be such an infected living organism, the way I see it.
Also, imagine (which is also a possibility) that because it became a living organism, then all these malwares will come to life.
Imagine, it will be possible to infect people with these digital viruses to a point where they can shut down nerve cells and brain cells. Why not? The living WWW will be aware of everything in the human body since all the human info are already online and these info will be alive.
Then imagine one more thing... Imagine that we will be food for the net, the net will be able to send living Trojan Horses into our bodies to transform us to living food Zombies from which the WWW will suck more power into it's own system that we become slaves to it...
Imagine also, many other things if the Internet is or will become alive while already possessing many personal infos about millions of individuals from millions of softwares, email boxes and connecting-people websites...
Just imagine the rest...

reply to post by RedAmnesia


Yes

And I believe Internet is very conscious right now, but there are so many bugs and moles and maggots...
We gotta get rid of them fast.

Artificial Intelligence!
Now, that is one big illusion. Let me guess, proof of AI would be an algorithm which would perfectly simulate human activity. Result: Internet without human beings, not needed anymore.

That's easy. Just ban Internet.

reply to post by Ownification


When people talk about self aware they cannot help but imply the "human" version of self aware, with the potential pitfalls of humans: Greed, selfishness, etc. tied together to the physical constraints of the human condition: The need for finite resources such as food, water, sex. etc.

The internet is quite likely *already* conscious by a much broader definition: it evolves and accumulates knowledge and displays signs of autonomy.

But to expect the internet to "take over" and screw humanity somehow, like on the movies, would require that the internet develops the "human" form of consciousness. I highly doubt that will happen.

However, in a few years, it would not surprise me to find natural language interfaces and "do as I intend" software user interfaces instead of the literal user interfaces we know today. That would be a visible indication of human-like thought and language, while not necessarily representing self awareness.

What will convince us of machine self awareness will be language of self awareness coming from a machine, which ironically is something that might be doable without any self awareness. I do believe things can be self aware in spite of the lack of such language, as is the case for higher primates and many other animals.

-rrr

reply to post by DangerDeath


Yes, and Indeed many multi-national software firms are developing AI Marketing/Advertising softwares to catch the surfers environment mood in order to target them with the perfect advertising that suits their needs and wants.
For Example: if my room is black and I have a Metallica album playing im y CD-Rom and my PC-Microphone is on and I'm talking to my friend about some Metal concert, the smart software will capture all this personal info (through the Mic, the Cam, or the CD-Rom, or etc...) that sometimes are not uploaded by me on the net in order to target me with Heavy Metal ads or pop-ups based on AI collected and manipulated matching info.
Imagine the rest... Intruding to our private life and feeding the net as a living organism with all our info so that the Net's AI will have no limits of growth and might evaluate into a next level where in won't control humans only but maybe other living organism, weather conditions, tectonic movements, eart rotation & magnetism, etc...

Intelligence by definition is creativeness.

That strictly means a behavior which doesn't follow protocols.
The idea of AI is to create intelligence which will do exactly the opposite.
It would be very difficult to persuade me that the intent behind attempt to create AI is to let it behave creatively.

If a machine becomes creative it means it is "broken".

reply to post by Ownification
Are we talking "the singularity" here? I am certainly no expert on this but I did see an HORIZON documentary on it ,which frankly scared the pants of me.--Human v 2.0. They predicted around 2028 machine would equal man.Sorry I'm not versed on this but I know scientists were divided on whether this was good or bad.I personally believe we are playing with fire.

Impossible. There is no chemical reactions that causes consciousness. There is no logic that can even being to describe consciousness.

All that can be done is simulations. You can simulate something to make it appear conscious, but it will not actually be conscious.

You can make it react to a touch. If touch is happening, then react in this way etc. But, it only registers a sensor, it does not actually "feel" the touch. It only knows it is being touched. It can process an image for you, pick out the road, and the trees if the programming is good enought, but it never actually see's a picture. It's just a bunch of patterns going on, no different than the gears in a machine.

It will only ever be able to follow the logic given to it, unable to create it's own logic or actually think for itself.

The brain is very much like a computer. And your body is very much like a machine. But they are tools for the real "you".

More likely is that one day they would map the brain and then be able to apply things to it, so that existing consciousness could live on in computer and not die.

However, I'd say this has already happened and that is exactly what reality is, and we are just recreating what is already created.

Foolish scientist who forgets the scientist is needed to observe and understand before science can exist.

Wonder if future AI will eventually come with a small print on it "*Consciousness not included".

I totally disagree.

I think that while ther emay be so many superflops, peta flops, etc or connections that the internet wont become conscious. an artificial intelligence wont come to be by itself or its just being connected to the net. how computers talk to each other is just via programming. a self aware artificial intelligence will come together by complex programming that is created and where it can learn. if someone makes for instance a simple program where it can learn, and where it can evolve it's own programming then it will become intelligent. not by the number of connections it has, not by the amount of computer power that is behind it, though it would learn faster with a faster processor or a combination of processors where it can do more calculations.

AI wont come together by hardware. But by software...

reply to post by badmedia

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. -Josh Billings

That's why it's worth zero on the market

Originally posted by Ownification

The Internet represents a major step in our evolution, and is a forerunner of things to come. Artificial intelligence researcher Francis Heylighen sees huge growth as this new world-wide communication system continues to gain power from billions of humans adding to its intelligence every day. “It will get smarter,” Heylighen says, “as it morphs into a global super-organism that could one day provide solutions to most of humanity’s problems.”

Wrap your heads around that for a while. It is undoubtedly correct to make such an assumptions because human beings are conscious through the same method. Just like computers we are also being used by another being for what ever purpose, this could be an infinite action-reaction or just in small size.


Actually Sir Roger Penrose has mathematically proven this to be wrong and published it. Only the numb minded will ever believe that a computer will have conscious.

www.consciousentities.com...

EDIT: FORGOT TO ADD THE LINK SORRY

www.memebox.com...

[edit on 013131p://31b3 by Ownification]

Google was designed to become an AI - this is the developers dream.

AI is already used by the military to advance levels, but will the Internet become conscious by the 2030s? Plausible. In fact, it might be earlier.

Google, in its current form, has a basic level of intelligence.

Originally posted by Dewm0nster
Well, if the internet becomes hostile and my computer tries to rise against me- I guess I'll be forced to stand up.
Quite literally, out of my chair.

What's it going to do, crash on me again?

Or it could get you picture on the police file labeled 'suspected suicide bomber' and then just as you leave the house to go work with your backpack it tips them off... By the time you board the tube train the police have pumped 14 rounds into your head and neck area.

Or maybe the old classic of filling up your hard drive with kiddieporn and snuff movies and again tipping off the police.

Originally posted by infinite
Google was designed to become an AI - this is the developers dream.

AI is already used by the military to advance levels, but will the Internet become conscious by the 2030s? Plausible. In fact, it might be earlier.

Google, in its current form, has a basic level of intelligence.

As I stated before, Sir Roger Penrose has proven this to be mathematically impossible for any computer to ever have intelligence or a conscious....

Originally posted by GrndLkNatv
As I stated before, Sir Roger Penrose has proven this to be mathematically impossible for any computer to ever have intelligence or a conscious....

The Catholic Church and numerous explorers proved, apparently, it was impossible for the world to be round and the Sun was the centre of the Solar System.

Theories can be proven wrong.

[edit on 2-3-2009 by infinite]